MUSIC REVIEW: BUFFALO CROWS – BLOOD

MUSIC REVIEW: BUFFALO CROWS – BLOOD
Independent
November 2023
Reviewed by Shane Pinnegar
94%

On a dark desert highway, far from the reach or interest of commercial radio, live the outcasts. The bands too heavy, too bludgeoning, too individual, too goddamn REAL for any but the true believers.

Buffalo Crows are one such band, a troupe of heavy boogie blues and hard-as-nails rockers who would have been Viking marauders back in the day, but instead are semi-domesticated purveyors of monolithic demi-psych riffs and obsidian aural damage.

Fourth album Blood sees the band again delving into their unique sonic brew – influenced by fellow Oz Rock outcasts Buffalo’s megariffing boogie, Monster Magnet-esque psych, Sabbathy ultradoom, Zeppelin sorcery, and much more.

Should commercial radio play a single Buffalo Crows song there is a large chance they would disappear in a puff of smoke – all they stand for suddenly being shown by comparison for the insipid plastic it is.

Richard Crowfoot leads from the front, his voice a raspy, ravaged wasteland upon which a thousand battles have been fought. Guitar riffs and bass are as relentless as an apocalyptic stormfront, wave after unstoppable wave of auditory assault bludgeoning the listener into willing submission. The drums are unpredictable – double bass metal mayhem strides purposefully alongside jazzy fills, while abrupt tempo and pattern changes mesmerise. Lead guitars dance like rapiers, like broadswords, like war hammers, cutting, nicking, impaling, crushing.

Theirs is an intoxicating mix, hypnotically heavy – doubly so when Russ Redford’s blues-soaked harmonica is brought into play, a battered, cascading waterfall of chromatic melody that starts with The Wizard and dances seductively into the unknown.

Blood is far more than the sum of its parts – Crowfoot, Barton, Redford, John McMullen, Paul Scarabelli, Eric Loi, Caitlin Crowfoot and Otis Edgar are a collective of sorts, friends first and bandmates second. Some play on all these songs, some on a couple. The song always comes first, just as their influences – their press release for Blood cites KISS, Led Zeppelin, Manowar, AC/DC, Molly Hatchet, Type O Negative, Armoured Angel, Nick Cave, Santana, Gary Moore, Rose Tattoo and more. It’s a heady mix and ensures Buffalo Crows sound unique.

Most importantly, Blood is a tribute to fallen guitarist Joe Barton – from all reports a lovely chap, and from their previous albums, a force of nature player – who recorded his parts before cancer got the better of him, and his solos here are imbued with an otherworldly fire. His work here, and the album itself, serve as a fitting epitaph, may he rock in peace.

 

 

 

 

Category: CD Reviews